Skin
by whatshouldntbe
Summary: These are the voyages of Captain Nyota S. Uhura, and her First Officer James T. Kirk, as they complete their five-year mission on the USS Enterprise. Or: The one where everyone swaps job titles and destines. Star Trek Reverse AU femKirk/Uhura


**Title:** Skin  
><strong>UniverseSeries:** Part of 'What Shouldn't Be' series, Reboot XI  
><strong>Pairing:<strong> Uhura/Kirk  
><strong>Rating:<strong> R (NC17 over all)  
><strong>Relationship status:<strong> First time  
><strong>Plot:<strong> Everyone swaps job titles and destines. Star Trek Reverse AU  
><strong>Warnings:<strong> always!girl Kirk, angst, drama, humiliation, jealousy, language, lack of monogamy, rom-com humor, sexual situations, implied violence, possible amateur world-building  
><strong>Additional Pairings:<strong> Uhura/Various, Kirk/Various

**Summary:** Nyota Uhura has always dreamed of captaining her own Starfleet designed ship with an uncompromising spirit and a loyal crew. It takes six years to get there, but she goes from Nyota Uhura to Captain Nyota Uhura of the USS Enterprise. What she doesn't need is some smug blonde haired, blue-eyed woman with distractingly full lips to throw a wrench in her goals. And she certainly could do with a better First Officer. Too bad she couldn't convince Spock to pursue the command track instead of becoming a communications officer. But nothing good ever comes easy.

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><p><strong>PART ONE<strong>

**Prologue**

Nyota Sanaa Uhura is eight when her parents die. She is eight and her heart is already so very small.

The way that it happens seems fated almost.

She was visiting her father with her mother (along with her older brother and sister) on the agriculturally colonized Sherman's Planet. Her father was second in command to Dr. Nilz Baris, who was spearheading the developmental mining projects. According to her father, Sherman's Planet was filled to the brim with viable water molecules and fine pollination particles which had the potential to change the way the Federation harvested biofuel by way of transesterification, and the transference of grain quadrotriticales by way of mobile freighters. This could theoretically become an essential future convenience in relieving any and all planets who had the misfortune of being struck by famine.

Nyota was too young at the time to really understand the weight of it. She was too busy reading her favorite Wonder Woman comic series for the thirty-ninth consecutive time. If she had been a different child at the time, she would have paid heed to the restless murmurings in the grounded camps between the scientists and the botanists and the engineers over their growing wariness of having to work on a still unofficially declared planet.

Rumor had it that there was a dispute about the Organian Peace Treaty. This dispute was continuously being reported in a news feed seen on display graphics posted throughout the camps on the planet. Because the Sherman's Planet was in such close vicinity of the Federation-Klingon border, this had cause a sort of power struggle between the Federation and the Klingon Empire. Both signs wanted blatant claim to the acclimated planet but neither were willing to concede to the other. The only reason the Klingons had knowledge of the planet and its finer abilities are because it was brought to their attention by Starfleet's determination to cultivate it. They were basically insisting to having been placed at an unfair advantage, and therefore the terms of the Organian Peace Treaty were being violated.

The fact that the planet was not being properly fortified, even while there were Klingon birds of prey being frequently spotted on patrols around mesosphere, only thickened the uneasiness everyone felt about the work they were doing.

Her parents sometimes argued about it at night, and since Nyota's shared a personal tent with her older siblings and it was adjacent to theirs, she often heard these disputes. Her mother was restless. She felt unsafe and she wanted her father to come home with her and the children before the tensions between the Klingons and the Federation grew to a boiling point. Her father could not be persuaded. He wanted to stay. He was too much a man of vision and ambition and he saw the unadulterated potential this planet and its resources held.

Her mother was angry, and she told her father that she and the children would spend only one more night before they traveled home, but she continually urged him to do the same. If he didn't, that would be the end of them, and he need not bother to come home at all.

The next morning is the clearest one Nyota will remember for a long time. The sky was purple and the air was wet. Their parents had made plans to catch the next shuttle up to watch the glowing asteroid storm, which would be happening at a safe distance, and it was intended to be their last happy memory as a family.

Nyota remembers that her older brother shook her awake with his big hands, complaining over her slowness, and grumbling about the reasoning behind her existence as he usually did when he was particularly annoyed with the fact that she was just there and that she belonged to their family. He was sixteen, his name was Kamau, he was taller than most, and sometimes, when he liked Nyota well enough, he let her sit on his shoulders and feel as big as he did.

Her older sister, Makena, was thirteen and moodier than an agitated bull. Nyota remembers that she complained the whole time. From the moment that they left their tents and boarded a shuttle that took them up and up, to the second right before a barrel of Klingon battleships swarmed the planet and tore it apart in an array of unmerciful mayhem. Their shuttle got caught in the crossfire, and crashed somewhere in the mountains, where they were later found by a patrolling ship and held for ransom (along with the few remaining survivors of the camps) by their Klingon captors.

Nyota doesn't remember much after that. This is the lie she will always tell whenever there is someone stupid enough to ask about the thick scar slashed into cheek like claw marks.

Because how could she remember being starved nearly to death as the Federation played with their lives? How could she remember being beaten and abused by her captors, not for a specific purpose, but for sport and game? How can she recall the horror of watching their captors kill their hostages one by one when the Federation failed to meet their demands? How could she relive the sensation of watching those hostages dwindle down to her small family? Even when they begged and pleaded and prayed and cried, how can she remember her heart breaking apart piece by piece as they killed her father and her mother and her brother and her sister?

Her Klingon captors eventually gave up their ambitions to take the planet by force and they left Nyota alive, but not by mercy, but because she would soon die as well, right there in the midst of destruction and death and insanity.

She had wanted to die too. What else was there to live for?

Nyota sat there for what might have been ages, cradled between the dead bodies of her loved ones, eyes glazed with hopelessness as she stared up at the purple sky. She didn't even blink when a group of Starfleet security officers flocked to her and pulled her from the wreckage. She didn't blink when they tried to assess the damage, get her to talk, see if she was all right.

She was not. How could she be?

She didn't blink when she was beamed aboard the USS Kelvin and taken to medbay. She didn't say anything when she found out that she was stuck with them for the next six months because they were trying to salvage what they could of the planet and the treaty and Nyota didn't really think that was acceptable. People had _died_ and there shouldn't be anything to talk about. Someone needed to be held accountable.

She was eight though—so what did she know about war and diplomacy?

She had been forced to swallow her anger, quiet it, and bide her time. She didn't say a word as every nurse and doctor poked and prodded away at her. They said she survived with a broken arm, fractured ribs, a badly dislocated shoulder and a three-clawed reminder in the shape of a scar on her cheek. But what did they know about surviving? That wasn't survival. There was a part of her that died on that planet with those people—with her family.

Nyota had wanted to die. But Captain Christopher Pike strode into that medbay with the cockiness and attitude of a man who never gave up easily and he smiled at her and didn't care that she stared at him blankly whenever he asked questions. He was patient and kind and it made Nyota cry when there was no one around to see.

Captain Pike came to medbay just for her, each day, and sat with her, talked to her, and kept his patience. He smiled at her like she wasn't ruined. He talked to her like she wasn't a tragedy. He treated her like a kid, even though she didn't feel much like a kid anymore. And sometimes in between those visits, he brought a little Vulcan the same age as her with him, whom he called Spock.

Spock introduced himself with a neutral expression and very human, very inquisitive eyes. Nyota sometimes had wondered if Captain Pike was Spock's father but she could never be sure. Spock certainly seemed comfortable with him, and Captain Pike was undoubtedly fond of him in return. Nyota was good at reading body language; she picked up on these things. She never asked because she never wanted to utter a word again. So she kept just as quiet as she's always been.

It seemed to make no difference to Spock. He was just as patient and understanding as Captain Pike was. Sometimes when Captain Pike left them alone, Spock would straighten and tuck his hands behind him before relaying his day in grave detail, or discussing some sort of science project that interested him, or even describing his progress with a specific dialect. He explained, without Nyota having to ask (not that she would have), how he would like to, perhaps someday, enter a field in which he would be able to utilize his language skills. He confessed that he was rather fond of linguistics and exolinguistics as it pertains to phonology.

Nyota had been as well, once upon a time, before all this. She might go a different way—now that she's seen the injustice in the universe. But she didn't say this and Spock offered to teach her chess to fill the gap of her continuing silence.

Pretty soon, Spock would seek her out on his own without being prompted by Captain Pike. He would bring his chessboard with him and they would play until one of the nurses or doctors herded him out of the ward for the night. Spock would always make an unnecessary promise that he would return, and Nyota could not help but to notice that he wasn't anything like what she'd heard about Vulcans at all.

Nyota had waking nightmares that terrorized her during the night, and try as the ship's psychiatrist might in efforts to urge her to share them, or her feelings, or to just speak at all, she would never. She wanted to die because this feeling of emptiness was a great deal worse than anything else she could have imagined. She was numb and she felt like she was sinking into a sticky web of darkness.

But sometimes (_sometimes_) when Captain Pike came to visit her with a box of sweets, or to inform her of what little progress they've made in regards to situation with the Klingons, or to promise that he would do all in his power to make sure that her family's sacrifice was not in vain, she felt a tiny grain of hope.

When Nyota was angry and bitter and spiteful, sometimes (_sometimes_) Spock came along with his chessboard, or a dry story about an intriguing article on cultural dialects, or a detailed account of all the happenings on the ship, she felt a little less so.

Sometimes Spock brought his mother with him when he visited Nyota. Her name was Amanda—human, gentle, intelligent—she was a multicultural emissary for Starfleet, and she also happened to be married to Captain Pike because something happened to her first husband, to Spock's father, that they never talk about.

The last two months that Nyota spent on the USS Kelvin in recovery of her physical, mental and emotional injuries, was in the company of Spock and his family. Amanda had extended an invitation to Nyota to their personal quarters in efforts to give her a change of scenery. Nyota had accepted because she was sick of being in the sterile environment of the medbay under the watchful gaze of doctors and nurses and psychiatrists.

She still had nightmares. She still didn't speak. She still wanted to die.

But being around Captain Pike and Amanda and Spock made it just a little less so.

The event known as the Sherman's Massacre came to a halt when the Federation conceded ownership of the planet to the Klingons in efforts to maintain peace and avoid conflict, but only on the grounds that those responsible for the wrongful deaths of the many on Sherman's Planet be turned over to the custody of Captain Pike so they may receive due punishment for their actions. Only a handful were given over, and with nothing but an eight year old as the sole survivor and deemed as an unreliable witness, they were accepted and condemned by the Federation to live out the remainder of their days past the realms of deep space nine under penalty of death.

Nyota didn't eat for days after, even under the urgings of Spock and Amanda. She was furious. She was distraught. She didn't find any of it fair, though she didn't blame Captain Pike (even as he apologized for the outcome of things) he had done his best and Nyota knew he was an honest man who sought justice as fervently as any man could in his position. He was a young captain, the youngest in the fleet, and it was silly of Nyota to think that he could have made a difference.

It became unsparingly clear to her that the lives of scientists and botanists and engineers meant so very little to the Federation. In the grand scheme of things, there was a bigger picture.

When the USS Kelvin returned to Earth and Nyota was restored to her remaining family (her Grandma Ugogo and her Uncle Raheem), she felt that her experience had left her with a bleak outlook on life. Before she stepped off the shuttle, which landed in Kitui, Kenya, she spoke for the first time in six months, and said to Captain Pike, Amanda, and Spock, "Thank you. You have been very gracious to me. I am grateful."

Amanda had smiled with tearful eyes. Spock had lifted his hand with the Vulcan salute and murmured a blessing in his native tongue. Captain Pike just looked on with sadness and disappointment that was aimed towards himself. He got down on one knee and held out his hand but Nyota didn't see the necessity of it. She bypassed that hand and hugged him in hopes that he would know that she did not blame him for anything. He had tried and that was more than she could have asked.

Her grandmother and uncle pried her from his arms not even moments later so as to have their own tearful reunion. They ushered her home and asked her many questions that she tried her best to answer. She cried and became angry because it was like opening up an old wound all over again, but at least now she had someone to grieve with.

Nyota wanted to die but she lived because she had to. For her family, both living and departed, she would be strong. She would overcome and do something noteworthy with her life—something that would make them all proud, and something she could be proud of.

So in keeping in constant communication with Spock (and consequently Amanda and Captain Pike as well) over the years, and as she draws closer to the age of nineteen, she somehow find herself anticipating a career in political affairs. She wanted to be involved in foreign diplomacy as they pertain to space, but to be more specific, she aspired to one day be Fleet Admiral, and furthermore, President of the Federation.

Her family encourages these plans, and even Captain Pike (who is now, at this point, _Admiral_ Pike) encourages these endeavors, as does Amanda and Spock.

So this is what she does—she packs her bags, flies out to California, and enrolls into the Academy, with a full-ride scholarship that she rightly deserves, together with Spock. After she takes her entrance competition exams and passes them, she buckles down to take her placement tests and awaits the results of them. She settles into her assigned dorm (with a roommate she can hardly be bothered to introduce herself to and who gapes at her facial scars unattractively) before Spock comms her with the suggestion that they visit a nearby bar.

Nyota is still dressed in the Academy red when she meets Spock there, and together they make a sociable use of the night.

It's not until her first disastrous meeting with the whirlwind husk that is James T. Kirk, does she suspect that she may be cursed.

It happens like this:

Nyota is fifteen minutes late and Spock is already in the company of the three other cadets. For a half-Vulcan, Spock was the most sociable person that Nyota knew and it would be amusing if it weren't so goddamn peculiar.

The first cadet that Spock introduces her to is a man by the name of Leonard McCoy, who is on the operations track with a focus in engineering as it pertains to advanced theoretical physics, relativistic mechanics, and astrophysics. He's got an array body tattoos that he doesn't mind showing off, and a grim smirk that sits under beard he doesn't look like he plans on shaving anytime soon. He's got rather attractive features, even if he is unnecessarily moody, but when he does laugh, it softens that bad boy charm of his that he seems to be aiming towards Spock interestingly enough.

The second cadet that Spock introduces her to is man by the name of Montgomery Scott ("Call me, Scotty, please."), who is on the command track with a focus in helms and navigation, astronomical sciences, as well as tactics and operations. He's got thin red hair, pale skin, and eager eyes that stay continually locked on Nyota for the duration of the night. He's sweet, but he's very loud and chipper.

The third cadet that Spock introduces her to is a man by the name of Hikaru Sulu, who is on the science track with a focus in medicine as it pertains to exobiology, space psychology, biochemistry, and comparative xenobiology. He's passionate about his field of study, and he's confident that he's got the steadiest hands in the entire galaxy. He then proves this theory by wagering McCoy that he can hit a bull's-eye on the dart board (backwards). He wins that bet.

Nyota isn't prone to making friends. She's not very friendly. In fact, she often comes off as cold and aggressive. The only people who have been able to tolerate her are her family (including Spock, Amanda, and Admiral Pike). She's a bit wary of this new company and she doesn't want to begrudge Spock of his new friends, but socializing really isn't her thing.

Maybe it's the six cups of Cardassian ales, or the easy chemistry shared between them all, but Nyota feels a real connection to these three. It's strange. They all seem to counteract each other like clockwork. It feels—complete almost.

Nyota is sent on the next alcohol run because McCoy is too busy flirting furiously with Spock while Scotty demands a rematch out of Sulu by way of the pool table crammed in the corner on the other side of the bar.

Honestly, Nyota doesn't even think that any of them notice when she slinks over to the bar, where she picks up a menu, ignoring the drools and the stares she's receiving, and rattles off all the drinks she wants. She gets them piled up on a tray and just as she finds her balance, she turns to take them to the table but ends up crashing right into someone. She curses as the drinks topples into her chest and crash onto the floor with a loud sound.

"Oh my God! See what you made me do, Gaila! Awe, geez," a breathless, sultry voice says to her immediate left.

The female named Gaila sounds like she's laughing quietly. Nyota doesn't bother to check, but she does hear her say, with blatant humor, "Least you got that _chance _you wanted to talk to her. I'd say it's a blessing in disguise."

"Shut _up. _You are the _Devil, _I swear." A pause. A sigh. "Uh, um—excuse me, miss. I'm so sorry. I can like—uh, I can pay for all that if you want? I'm really sorry. I'm a total klutz. You just—well at least 'the wet look' really suits you."

Nyota almost rolls her eyes. Almost. Instead, she sighs long-sufferingly, looks down at her drenched chest as she sets the tray in her hand down on the bar gingerly before grabbing some napkins from a nearby dispenser. As she's drying herself off, she slowly turns to the source of the voice, and stops short in surprise by the sight she's met with.

And please excuse her for a second because she is about to get really corny.

Those blue eyes. They're unlike any kind of blue that Nyota is familiar with. She could have a doctorate in poetry but it still wouldn't be of any use to her right now. There's just no words to really describe how spellbindingly blue her eyes are. She's got a gorgeous head full of yellow hair, falling in waves around her freckled face. She also has the most distractingly full lips, which aren't any less distracting when she gives a self-deprecatingly embarrassed grin.

The blush she's sporting makes Nyota want to take her home, press her down into the mattress and—she stops that thought short.

"Name's James T. by the way." Jim offers her small hand, and that sunny smile doesn't fail to disarm her. "But you can call me Jim."

Nyota blinks before she shakes the hand offered to her, blinking harder when that touch sends a chill up her spine that echoes in waves of pure want between her thighs. She hasn't felt that feeling in a very long time. She quickly pulls her hand back with a dry swallow and rubs the moist palm against the side of her skirt.

Jim's blue eyes are twinkling in amusement. She's not like the other kinds of people who hit on her. They could never help themselves when they looked at the ugly claw scars on her right cheek with blatant curiosity in their eyes. But not Jim—she looks Nyota right in her eyes like she doesn't even notice—like she doesn't even _mind_. She says, "Now this is usually the part where you tell me your name."

Nyota's mouth purses unhappily and she turns away. "Uhura," she bites out tersely.

"Peculiar for a first name," Jim supposes, and she says it so pleasantly that Nyota has a hard time being irritated.

"Uhura is my last name."

"Oh," Jim breathes, almost like she's awed. She jams her hands in the pockets of her leather jacket. "I really am sorry about running into you like that."

"It's fine," Nyota says, even though it really isn't. She feels unsettled and jittery all of a sudden. "Forget it." She turns away completely and flags the bartender down. Second time's a charm.

Jim doesn't get that Nyota has politely dismissed her. She slides onto the barstool to Nyota's immediate right with a full-blown cocky smile that Nyota usually finds unattractive in most people, but Jim manages to wear it so damningly well. "So, you're a cadet, right? What's your focus?"

Nyota wants to ask why she's so cheerful. Why she's so adamant about getting to know her. She had just made a fool out of herself, and most people would retreat, regroup, and reevaluate.

Not Jim, apparently. She seems to like to brave the unknown.

So does Nyota. Which is why, before she can even question herself, she says, "I'm on the command track," because maybe she can let herself have this. It doesn't have to mean anything in the long run. Maybe this once she can take a small risk.

"Cool," Jim says, and she sounds so young that Nyota wonders how old she is. "I bet they'll give you a ship in no time."

Nyota pauses at that because Jim sounds so unfailingly genuine—like she actually believes what she says, and she's not just saying it to flatter Nyota or to get in her pants. Nyota thinks she might want to get into Jim's pants because she seems so polar opposite from everything that she's ever known. Jim is like a bundle of energy and optimism and Nyota thinks that she might like to try it, to share in it with Jim, just for a night.

"Can I buy these drinks for you? I really think I ought to," Jim says, and she bats her long eyelashes and bites her bottom lip and she's _fucking _playing Nyota.

Nyota smirks a little. She no stranger to these types of charms, but with Jim, she thinks she just might let herself be fazed by it. "How about I buy these for myself?" She waits a moment and watches amusedly as Jim's mouth fold with a disappointed pout. She's spoiled, and obviously used to getting her way. Nyota's getting the inexplicable urge to take Jim to bed and _make _her behave. She adds, "But if you want something—I can buy that too." She lets that be the invitation it is.

It's worth seeing the way Jim's fetchingly blue eyes light up with a joyously (undeserved) triumphant grin. "Yeah? Yeah. Okay."

"What's your poison?" Nyota asks and twists so that they're facing each other. She wants to kiss Jim breathless, shove her tongue in that pink mouth—maybe press her into the edge of the bar with it until Jim gets weak-kneed and docile. God, and Nyota wants to know what it's like to have a docile Jim squirming like putty in her hands.

Jim must read it off her face because she flushes a bit but eagerly replies, "Anything you have back at your place."

Nyota laughs a little, and she has to admit that despite appearances, Jim seems to be very clever. She opens her mouth but before she can formulate a proper reply, a sharply loud whistle pierces the festive atmosphere and the entire group of red uniforms (including Nyota, herself) stand at attention. Nyota watches in confusion as Admiral Pike makes his way through the crowd along with two uniformed bodyguards and the fucking President of the Federation. Her confusion thickens when they make a beeline for her and Jim.

Jim curses under her breath and fidgets but she straightens defiantly.

"Why am I not surprised?" President Kirk says with a sigh. "Why am I ever surprised?"

Jim says nothing.

Nyota is even more confused.

President Kirk frowns and turns his blues eyes on Nyota.

That's when Nyota picks up on the familial resemblance and she almost shits herself in realization because she was just about to fucking pick up the President's _daughter _in some backwater bar.

Everyone is openly staring at them now and Nyota wants to melt into the floor. This is why she _doesn't socialize_.

"She one of yours, Chris?" President Kirk asks without lifting his gaze. He stares at the claw scars on her right cheek and Nyota resists the urge to flinch or glare.

Admiral Pike says, "She's a starting cadet, yes." He seems to be trying to send some wordless communication to Nyota but she can't pick up on it because she's stuck in a staring contest with _the fucking President of the Federation, _so excuse her for a moment while she withers from humiliation_._

"What's your name, Cadet?" President Kirk says lowly. There's an undertone of warning there, and for a seemingly harmless and handsome man she's seen on vid screens countless times in the last eight years, he can be intimidating.

Nyota swallows and flattens her shoulders as confidently as she can. "Nyota Uhura, sir."

"Uhura." President Kirk rolls the name around in his mouth and it's not in the way that Nyota would have preferred. "Let me ask you, Cadet Uhura—were you aware that my daughter has barely reached the scope of sixteen?"

"_Dad_," Jim hisses, sounding as mortified as Nyota feels.

Nyota's tongue feels like heavy and bitter in her mouth. She shakes her head in a negative.

"So you understand that her being in this bar presents a very difficult problem for me," President Kirk goes on to say. "Are you the one that snuck her in? Have you been buying her drinks?"

Nyota doesn't know how to respond. She's slowly drowning internally in waves of anger and humiliation. If he were anyone else, she'd dismiss him in a heartbeat with a few scathing remarks that would surely make him cry. But he's not just _anyone_—he's the man with the future job she wants and he's looking at her like she's trash and she can't do a _thing _about it.

Everyone is watching them.

"She didn't do anything," Jim defends. Not that it helps. At all. "And I don't need anyone to sneak me in. I can get in just fine on my own. Not that you would notice, since you and mom seem to think that I'm incapable of doing anything without your approval or help."

"And why would we trust you to do anything when you behave like this?" President Kirk snaps before he quickly gathers himself. "I'm not about to argue with you here." He turns away and Nyota feels like she can breathe again. "Everyone go home. This bar will be closed until further notice."

"Dad!" Jim snaps in outrage and flushes in pure shame. "God, can you not be an asshole for one second and take it out on the entire planet when I do something you don't like?"

"Jim, don't test me on this. My patience is already wearing thin. What kind of a bar lets minors slip right in as they please? And where's that damn cousin of yours? I know she rides on your coat tails wherever you go. You go get her and you find your way to the car." President Kirk snaps his fingers at one of the surly bodyguards. "You make sure she follows through. I'll be out in a moment."

Jim looks absolutely mutinous but in the end she sends Nyota an apologetically wounded look before she scuttles out of sight.

No one moves.

President Kirk turns to Nyota and he assesses her once before he completely dismisses her. He turns to Admiral Kirk and says, "I'll let you punish her as you see fit. These cadets really should be more mindful of the people in their surroundings. Disregarding such things could get them into an even messier dilemma in the future. I'm being quite generous here, I'd say."

Admiral Pike gives a short nod and doesn't move until after President Kirk sweeps out of the bar with his lackeys. Everyone breathes a little easier once he's gone and even Admiral Pike looks a tad bit relieved. He says, "Where's Spock?"

Nyota has no idea and she shrugs to let him know.

Admiral Pike sighs before he calls, "At ease, cadets. Everyone clear the bar out. You're all done for the night."

No one is stupid enough to complain.

"You find that son of mine and you two get home," Admiral Pike advises.

"But, sir," Nyota quickly says. She knows that it's unfair for her to be punished for a mistake she made, but she'd rather be safe than sorry. She's got a future she's trying pave for herself and she could do without small mishaps like this. "Aren't you going to assign a punishment?" Her teeth grind together after the question mark because she's absolutely livid.

Admiral Pike looks unfailingly amused. "No, Nyota. I don't think so. I think that one on one with him was enough. But if anyone asks, I assigned you kitchen duty for two weeks." He winks before he strides out of the bar.

Nyota would snort in other situations. Right now, she just wants to punch something.

She tracks down Spock and drags him back to his dorm where she forcibly spends the night. She's afraid that if she goes back to her own, she'll just wind up in nasty tussle with her roommate.

When Spock asks her about the commotion that occurred while he was otherwise occupied by McCoy's skillful tongue (she does not _even _want to know), Nyota explains the horrifyingly disastrous event word for word.

Spock tries to offer his condolences and Nyota just smiles sadly at him and shrugs. He wanders off to meditate while she facilitates the use of his bed. She envies the fact that he doesn't have to share his dorm.

Right before she falls asleep to the smell of burning incense, she swears off James T. Kirk for about a thousand lifetimes.

Too bad the universe has different plans.

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><p><strong>Author's Note:<strong> _Not sure when the next update will be. I just wanted to get started on this so I wouldn't forget it. I think it might help if ya'll let me know what you think of it so far._


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